Conservatives jumping to UKIP – are MPs next?

This week, Tim Montgomerie, founder of ConservativeHome, wrote in The Times that he knows “of two Conservative MPs seriously considering following the path already trodden by Roger Helmer, MEP, and other Tory activists.”

So tempting! Ah, Tim knows how to tease the Twitterverse’s denizens – the politicos, policy wonks and politics anoraks. Who could these two MPs be?

But, I don’t believe Guido has got them right. I think he’s missing one of the most likely.

I think that a UKIP-defector must be a Eurosceptic – for all UKIPs insistence that they’re not a single-issue party, euroscepticism does seem to be the main unifying factor in the party’s ideology (to the point where they have to point out they’re not racist) and from their success in European Parliament elections and poll-boosts when Cameron is viewed as too weak on Europe makes it self-evident that the electorate views them as the United Kingdom Eurosceptic Party. Montgomerie does say that UKIP have developed into “a multiflavoured receptacle for disillusioned Conservatives”, but at their core is euroscepticism.

I also think that it would encourage a Tory MP to defect if their chances of success in the Tories are limits –

a) by having a limited future in the party, being too associated with the backbenches to be considered for leadership, or being too disparaging of the dominant Cameroon wing to ‘make it’.

b) by incumbency in a seat to be dismembered or abolished, forcing them into competition with incumbent Tories.

c) by being from the 2010 intake. This intake was decidedly more eurosceptic than traditional Tories, and far more Thatcherite. It also means that the members have less ties to the more well-established party élite, and have had less contact with the whips.

Mark Pritchard is Guido’s favourite – the “secretary of the 1922 Committee resigned from his position as the Conservative Party’s International Office deputy chairman last month, telling the papers that his decision was a protest against Cameron’s weakness on Europe.” I tend to agree – his history of euroscepticism is notable, and I reckon he is a very likely candidate.

George Eustice is an ex-UKIPer himself – but I strongly doubt he’d defect, and Guido says it’s an “outside punt”. His future inside the Tories is too bright, and I’ve wondered previously if his Eurosceptic grouping was cultivated by the leadership. His amendment to the infamous back-bench referendum motion wasn’t supported by the government but certainly let it off the hook.

I can’t see why Bill Cash would defect. If he indeed on the end of his tether, then he’s a possibility, but why wouldn’t he have defected beforehand? He holds huge influence within the party, and I personally see no reason why he’s jeopardise that. But, his defection would possibly be the most damaging to the Tories, in my view.

Douglas Carswell is similar – I can’t see a specific pushing factor beyond general dissatisfaction, but it would be very damaging. He’s also tied with Dan Hannah MEP, a renowned Eurosceptic – perhaps they’d shift together?

Bernard Jenkin, Philip Bone and Mark Reckless are similarly eurosceptic – in another world they would be UKIPers but I don’t see why they’d take the plunge. I’ve included them to illustrate one crucial factor – the boundary changes. All three of their seats are reasonably secure – no major changes are likely to occur. Why risk defecting to a fringe party and bring the wrath of the Conservative Party HQ down on them in 2015?

I include them to raise one of the crucial – perhaps the most crucial – factor. The boundary changes.

If an MP is having their seat taken away, why wouldn’t they decide to jump ship? Especially if they’re going to be put into direct competition with other incumbent Tories in selection processes.

Because of this – I want to look at Nadine Dorries and Philip Davies.

Nadine Dorries‘ constituency of Mid-Bedfordshire is being utterly dismembered in the Boundary Review. She’s up against other Conservative incumbents in nearby constituency selection processes. Don’t forget that she’s not exactly beloved of Conservative Party HQ. They’re not going to help her.

So why not transfer to a new party? That means she avoids a selection process she’d loose and can still fight as an incumbent in a new seat.

The surrounding seats – Hitchen and Harpenden, North Bedfordshire and South West Bedfordshire – all have the Liberal Democrats in second – it could mean that she could draw off enough Tory votes to gain a majority… or, even, hopefully, for me at least, take enough Tory votes to give the Lib Dems a win. Local politics would be crucial here, I feel.

But then again, perhaps she’d rather leave mainstream politics? Or try and force a contest against other Tories?

However, I’m not convinced by her defecting. She’s a Christian conservative- a pretty extreme one, admittedly, but a Christian. While I don’t doubt many UKIPers are Christian, and vice-versa, it doesn’t fit her politics.

UKIP isn’t a Christian conservative party on the far-right, but a “common sense”, populist, conservative party. These “common sense” positions – why bother with such bleedin’ heart liberal ideas like human rights, internationalism, or national minimum wage – don’t extend so much to Dories’ religious convictions on abortion, for example. She’s definitely a disaffected Tory but she isn’t a real fit for UKIP.

I’m far more convinced that Philip Davies would be the rebel. He, in my mind, is the most likely candidate, and forms some sort of perfect storm of conditions

He is one of the Commons’ most eurosceptic MPs.

He is a reasonably regular rebel against the government – particularly on Europe.

He has announced his intention to remain a backbencher , so as to represent his constituents better. He isn’t looking for promotion, and is no ally of the Cameroon leadership.

His mix of libertarian economics (he was the one to propose lower minimum pay for disabled people) and authoritarian standpoint on human rights and immigration, claiming “My first thought would be to scrap the Human Rights Act for foreign nationals and chuck them out of the country. If they are British citizens, we have to do something. Whether it’s through surveillance or control orders, it’s open to debate”, would appeal to UKIPs brand of popular ‘commonsense’ “caricature of Conservatism” as Montgomerie put it.

He is an organiser for the Tax Payers Alliance.

His stance on Islam is…less than friendly. He apparently urged mosques to fly the British flag to show their allegiance to the British state… automatically assuming that it needs to be proven, whereas churches are naturally loyalist?

His father is the English Democrat mayor of Doncaster.

His seat (Shipley) is to be torn asunder in the Boundary reviews. Part is due to be absorbed by Bradford West, so naturally unfriendly territory since Galloway’s election. Several wards are going into Guiseley and Yeadon constituency, and parts into Keighley – incumbent Conservative Kris Hopkins may very well beat him in selection. He may have to fight the Tory MP for Pudsey in Guiseley. Most of the rest of the city is projected to be Labourite (including David Ward’s Lib Dem Bradford East).

He is a member of the Better Off Out campaign… and UKIP is already so fond of him that they didn’t run a candidate against him in 2010. Indeed, they actively campaigned for him to be re-elected! He increased his majority to 10,000, enough to maybe, maybe, be able to take a seat from a Tory in 2015.

UPDATES

I’ve received some feedback on Twitter on notable Tories who I’ve missed. I wanted to include them here.

It might be that Mrs Bone is nagging him over the breakfast table to defect. But somehow… I just don’t sense that he’s that radical. He seems quite happy with his quirky notability, I doubt he wants true infamy. But who knows. My caveat – as with all these critiques – is that I can’t see into their minds. But still…

Hollobone is one I missed at first, I’ll confess – he’s the most rebellious Tory MP, by far. He’s one of UKIP’s favourites, much like Davies. Lord Pearson has said UKIP would do “everything to get him in” to Parliament. He’s involved with Better Off Out (BOO). His Private Members’ Bill to ban wearing of the Burka was… interesting.

Most interestingly, he apparently attacked Baroness Warsi over her handling of new UKIPer Roger Helmer’s defection.

I believe Hollobone is a pretty good option. One to watch.

David Nuttal is the second most rebellious after Hollobone – he was the one who proposed the motion on a referendum on EU membership. The tagline on his website is “Straight talking common sense”, tying into the “common sense” UKIP image. Just looking through his views shows he’s reasonably similar to UKIP…though not as extreme as Helmer etc. His namesake MEP Peter Nuttall supported his PMB on smoking in pubs… but they did stand against him in 2010. Let’s see how they align in 2015.

Another good call. Less likely but interesting. Perhaps he has too much of a future within the Tory party as Bill Cash’s successor to defect?

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Philip Davies, MP for Shipley, is my choice for the most likely Tory to defect to UKIP. He’s already a darling of the party and seems closer to Farage than to Cameron. He’s up against heavy competition to survive as an MP in Bradford. He may as well jump… and I think he’d land on his feet.

Mark Pritchard, Nadine Dorries, Philip Hollobone and Bill Cash are my other choices on who to watch. But then again, it could be some random back-bencher, who is simply fed up with Cameron in general – not just over Europe, but the whole shebang.

However, the question we need to be asking is not who will jump but will they do the decent thing and submit to a by-election, as UKIPers and Roger Helmer, when a Tory, consistently insisted that Lib Dems who resigned or changed parties should do.

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What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you think that Philip Davies is the most likely jumper? Which jumper would most damage the Tory party? Am I right?

I agree on the Europhobic pressure – I doubt Nuttal et al really expected the motion to pass, for example, but it’s a way of dragging the party back to ‘their’ way. But, who knows how long their tether really is…

I’m wondering if Montgomerie wrote the article to put his own pressure on the prospective defectors…

It’ll have to be someone who has no future in the Tories – it’s why I’ve picked out Philip Davies as my key choice 🙂

I think she’s definitely more on the “UKIP Fringe” but I’m not certain how well she fit into the “common sense” conservative image that I reckon UKIP tries to cultivate. She’s a bit too… well, Mad Nad. She might be more comfortable there, but I wonder if UKIP want her. The Tories certainly don’t 😉

That image of UKIP only really exists in the minds of hardline Westminster-watchers like us, who give credence to what Farage et al. proffer as the party line! In practice, like the activists bodies of most political parties, they are a) a mixed bag, and b) a mixed bag of nuts. Emphasis on the nuts. Illuminati, EUSSR, Bilderberg, unreported missing (white) children, avid religiosity, the campaign to hang all elected British politicians for treason over EU membership etc etc. I think perhaps you are giving them too much credit as a serious political movement. Mad Nad would be absolutely at home.

True, there are a fair few… extremists (?)… in UKIP, but they’re not all like that.

I think that UKIP are becoming more and more acceptable in the eyes of the electorate. It’s far more of a home for disenfranchised Tories than ever before. I can see them hanging around for quite a while…

Interesting analysis. I would coin-toss Davies or Dorries. I suspect Nadine is the more naive……No, wait, I KNOW she is, so would try and ‘commit a Palin’ by acting the strong independent woman and ending up with an even worse reputation than the one she has now.

Davies seems to tick all the boxes. But when, and how, would he jump? Before the locals? Before the Commissioner elections?

I think you’re missing a couple of factors in your analysis here. A party is more than an ideological home; it’s also a support network. So if it was me I’d look for MPs that don’t have close political allies within their party–and David Nuttall and Philip Davies appear to come as a double-act. So I’d say doubles or quits for that particular pairing, with my logic edging slightly in the direction of ‘quits’–Nuttall, as you say, has potential, and Davies is likeable enough that I can’t see him being that isolated.

Also, you’re not looking for a particularly clear thinker. Firstly, ‘common sense’ is not a clear-thinking ideology, if indeed it’s an ideology at all.Right wingers, far more than the rest of the political spectrum, are motivated by pragmatism and possibly fear, which is why they have largely stuck to the safety-in-numbers that the Conservative Party offers them. Their desire to rebel would have to be stronger than the pure mathematical logic that demonstrates that the Conservative party is the most effective place for them. And while Dorries is demonstrably crazy, I don’t think she’s the right kind of crazy for that.

Beyond that, I don’t really have a candidate to offer and suspect it’d be someone we’ve never heard of; or nobody at all. Usually defections happen in complete and utter secrecy; and the fact that UKIP were making noises about it to me suggests that it’s probably never going to happen now.

That said, I can’t help thinking Peter Bone’s wife would make the perfect UKIPer. But nothing would probably ever come of that either. 🙂

Fair points. I’ll confess, I’ve not looked at ties beween MPs – mostly, honestly, because I don’t feel I know them well-enough, or at all. I can see who votes similarly in the House, but I don’t know if they actually have a drink together later 😉

It’s true what you say about the support network – but then again, I did look at ones who’s seats are being axed, and are also less likely to have support form CGHQ or to advance within the party. These MPs, I doubt, would feel as though the Tories are a support network.

But I also think it’s important to note that UKIP is becoming an ever-stronger network. Many activists, a likely strong showing in European Parliament elections… it’s developing.

And Montgomerie doesn’t say that one will defect, he thinks two are strongly considering it. It may be you’re right and it’s the Nuttall-Davies double-act. I’ll freely concede, it’s more probable that it’s

a) an utterly isolated backbencher who know one knows about
b) two or three highly-aligned MPs who are highly eurosceptic and dissafected, and feel that the party is not the place for them.

It’s also why I noted that if Bill Cash were to defect, it would be highly damaging to the Conservatives. I think that if he went, an entire wing could, slowly, cleave off. He could almost certainly take a handful of MPs with him.

It is also possible that defections happen, reasonable, in public and in isolation – Roger Helmer is an example. When I heard he was resigning I thought, somewhat flippantly, “wot, he hasn’t defected?” Sometimes, you can tell who, it’s a reasonably public affair and they do go solo. I don’t *believe* anyone went with him, e.g. the second on the MEP list in the E.Midlands didn’t defect, and I don’t believe Alexandra Swann’s defection was anything to do with him, just coincidentally at a similar time. So it IS possible that, say, Davies would defect solo. It’s doubtful…

…but I will be honest, I doubt anyone’s going to defect, especially now it’s out in the open. The whips are hunting. But who knows… it would be interesting.

I’d disagree on the second-part. I don’t think “common sense” is an coherent ideology, but then again, I don’t think that UKIP are all that coherent 😉 It *is* however, how they brand themselves. A more working-class, down to earth, kind of Tory, not one for Bankers but normal people, who don’t see the point in all this bleeding heart liberal EU crap. Essentially. And thus, seeing which Tory MPs seem to subscribe more to that

Numerically, the Tories are stronger, but that doesn’t have to be forever. A new right-wing party could survive out there, and MPs defecting could be the tipping point for it to happen. Mathematical logic is chanigng, if slowly. Plus, we’re only talking on a national level. Locally, in some seats the UKIP + ‘Commonsense’ Tory vote may be enough to tempt a defector.

Yeah, now UKIP are talking about it… I doubt it’d happen. They’d want to deny it, to protect talks. It may be that the MPs Montgomerie’s talking about were thinking about it but not far enough along to actually talk to UKIP. Perhaps.

Ah, imagine it now… “This morning, over breakfast, my wife asked why I was bothering to toe the line with that liberal Cameron fellow, and I decided, of my own free-will you understand, to defect. Goodbye bitches!”

An issue with Davies must be the influence of his father who is the English Democrat Mayor of Doncaster. Farage once paid his deposit when he stood for election with UKIP and he repaid that by leaving UKIP in 2006 to join ED. Not sure Dad will be encouraging young Philip to cross the floor and also Philip might consider it embarrassing for his Dad